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Abstract

Floods can be very destructive, capable of leveling whole towns and decimating crops and fields. Typically in regions prone to flooding there are cycles of flooding that occur, usually in areas where a wet season comes after a period of drought. You can use precipitation data to test if incidents of flooding have been preceded by periods of drought. Look for long periods of dryness in the precipitation data to indicate a drought. You can also conduct an experiment on dry or moist soil to see which is most likely to flood. You can also look for seasonal patterns in incidents of flooding because in some regions it may be a yearly phenomenon, at the beginning of the wet season for example. (NCAR, 2006; NOAA, 2006; Weather Underground, 2006; WMO, 2006)

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